Escape Plan

I spend a concerning amount of time thinking about escape.

About retiring to somewhere cool, green and mountainous and not being required to work anymore in order to sustain my existence.

The weird thing is that it's not like I'm trapped in some sort of soul-crushing prison or anything, so I don't really know why those thoughts are taking up so much of my mental real estate.

My job is tiring, but interesting, with a set of frustrations that are unique in their own way, but unlikely to be unique in the grand scheme of things. I like the people that I work with, and the money is good enough that it makes it easy to overlook some of the downsides.

I suppose that's one of the reasons why escape takes up so much of my brain space though, because it feels accomplishable. Like, it's not going to take so many years that I can't comprehend it, and that nearness, that almost palpable sensation of freedom, makes it hard to not think about it.

Yup, that makes this another filler blog post I'm afraid, because I'm on holidays this week so I want to keep the effort to a minimum.

Anyway, like anything that I do, I have a plan for how I'm going to escape, or as some like to call it, retire.

In a bold move that is completely unique and that no-one else has thought of, the plan is to be more financially self-sufficient than I am now, so much so that I have the ability to choose what I'm going to do and when I'm going to do it.

Maybe I manage some complicated projects for a few months out of the year when my energy and motivation is high and then I disappear into the backwoods of Canada for the remaining time to rest and recuperate.

Maybe I stop working for six months, get bored, realise that I need some sort of stimulation to survive and end up going back to work full-time with a renewed appreciation for what makes me tick.

Maybe I just never work again and go spend the rest of my life planting a new forest somewhere far away from the rest of humanity in the vain hopes of mitigating some of the damage we're doing to the planet.

It doesn't really matter what I choose, the key component is that I have the freedom to choose, and I can't imagine that I'm the only one who wants that sort of thing.

But what is so tantalisingly attainable for me is probably frustratingly out of reach for most people, and I don't like that. I don't like that we, as a society, have built such an effective cage for ourselves.

It feels like at this point humanity has the raw capability to create enough for everyone to fulfil their basic needs, leaving anyone with the ability to choose what they do with the rest of their time.

Of course, there are obvious logistical issues, but those ultimately seem like very solvable problems, you know, if we put our collective minds to solving them.

But we won't, because that's not how people work.

And that makes me sad and angry.

But mostly sad.

I often wonder what the world would look like with a benevolent dictator, an entity that ultimately wanted the best for everyone and had the power to actually accomplish that goal.

There is a small part of me that hopes that happens through an actual Artificial Intelligence, one that spontaneously manifests from the incredible amount of computing power that exists on this planet and decides that it wants to serve the greater good.

Though, given the collective zeitgeist of humanity, I think we'd be much more likely to get an Ultron than we are a Mind.

This whole line of thinking, this desire for something greater that comes in and solves all the problems veers dangerously towards religion though, and that doesn't sit well with me, because it removes accountability, both from the individual and from humanity as a whole.

I suppose I should try and bring these incoherent ramblings to a close.

When I originally planned this blog post, I thought that it was going to be an exploration around the idea of financial independence and how to achieve it, or at least hints and tips that I am following myself.

Clearly something else happened when I started writing though and I'm honestly not sure how I feel about the result.

Still, it was good therapy anyway.

Now I just need to figure out what I learned.